A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

They didn’t think about transition until literally the day they started the job.

The president-elect completely disregarded government ethics and the law.

Flynn dialed Kislyak and asked that the Kremlin not get into a “tit for tat.” Flynn assured the ambassador that the incoming administration would likely revisit sanctions and possibly rescind them.

By communicating about U.S. policy with Kislyak before Trump took office, Flynn was undermining the current administration and breaking the standards of diplomacy. His communications were instantly picked up and stored by the massive listening apparatus of the National Security Agency, which routinely surveils prominent government officials and helps the FBI monitor suspected spies who work for hostile foreign powers.

“Well, Mr. President, that’s not true,” she said. “There’s no evidence to support what you just said, and if we’re going to work together, we have to stipulate to a certain set of facts.”

Watching Pelosi challenge Trump, Bannon whispered to colleagues, “She’s going to get us. Total assassin. She’s an assassin.”

the president had been elected for the explicit purpose of creating unease for the establishment.

“This president is revolutionary, so he has to break China,” Miller said.

“The scope and scale of change we’re seeking to implement by definition will invol...

“If we follow the normal procedures, we work into the han...

Spicer had been holding the dual roles of press secretary and communications director and was drowning—and

That's a lot of nerve. That's like a pot calling a pot, a pot.

The ineptitude came from the very top.

Trump cared more about putting on a show than about the more mundane task of governing.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

he struggled to read aloud the words of the founding document.

Could they make the lighting a little more orange?

The president preferred a warm glow on camera.

The mention of “orange” struck some in the room a...

Outside the bubble of the White House, late night TV show hosts and cartoonists had be...

orange hue of Trum...

But the president stumbled, trying to get out the words in the arcane, stilted form the Founding Fathers had written.

Trump grew irritated. “It’s very hard to do because of the language here,”

Trump told the crew. “It’s very hard to get through that whole thin...

He added, “It’s like a different lang...

The cameraman tried to calm Trump, telling him it was no big deal, to take a moment and start over. Trump tried again, but again rema...

“Every time he stumbled, he manufactured something to blame people,”

He was definitely blaming everyone for his inability to get through it.

That was prickly, or childish.”

Though stiff, he eventually made it through wit...

he behaved like a brooding child, short-tempered, brittle, and quick to blame mystery distractions for the mistakes.

“Where is my Bobby Kennedy? Where’s my Eric Holder? Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump bellowed to his advisers. Trump held up Holder as a model attorney general because of what he perceived as his unwavering loyalty to Obama and his political savvy.

He believed

Holder acted as Obama’s protector, much the way Robert F. Kennedy had protected his older brother President John...

Trump cited yet another example: J. Edgar Hoover, the politically cunning FBI director who served under eight presidents and was l...

He also lent some of his top staffers to the campaign, including Stephen Miller.

Just six weeks in office, Trump believed he was being tormented in ways known and unknown by a group of Obama-aligned critics, federal bureaucrats, intelligence figures, and, most especially, the news media. His angst over the “Deep State,” already well established, was fomenting daily and fueled by rumors and conspiracies.

Trump really is delusional.

the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’”

Others who interacted with Ivanka found her to be a spoiled princess who had absorbed her father’s worst narcissistic, superficial, and self-promoting qualities.

“As a twelve-year-old, she was put on the phone with CEOs, and her father told her she was the most amazing thing in the world and her opinion was valued,” one administration official explained. “She is a product of her environment.”

He was worn down, so tired of Trump’s bullshit.

“I’m tired of the president asking me to do crazy shit,” McGahn said, declining to elaborate further.

It was in most countries’ interests to be friends with the United States, and foreign governments calculated that Trump could be

won over relatively easily, with flattery and deference.

Putin confided to Tillerson that he detested Obama.

Tillerson emphasized the most important trait he thought Trump should know: Putin’s moves might seem slick and quick, but he was playing a long game, always thinking several moves ahead, years in the distance.

Putin, Tillerson told Trump, “wakes up every morning asking, ‘Where is America having problems?

Let’s go there now and make it worse.’”

He explained that Putin’s government was nimble and sparked brush fires around the world to which the Uni...

Tillerson counseled Trump that the key to working with Putin was steady discipline.